Never shut your eyes while driving - Kilometre 31 (2006)

AKA KM31 or Hell's Highway


You know the drill, someone's driving along the road, not paying attention and out steps someone or something creepy who stalks them for the rest of the film. That's pretty much true here except Kilometre 31 starts a little bit like Ils but with a more supernatural aggressor. This is Mexico's version of the hit and run urban legend. Vamonos!

A young woman named Agata is wiping her eyes when she hits a boy with her car. She gets out and calls for help just as she hears the boy laugh and start to sing. She takes a look at his face and while startled by his odd, ghostly appearance she is knocked down by a truck. Suffering horrendous injuries, she is confined to a coma. Sharing a bond with her twin sister Catalina, she becomes haunted by apparitions of a woman and young boy.

I'm not sure if I've seen a Mexican horror before but it had a distinctly Asian feel and I don't know if that was deliberate or incidental. All the Japanese horror hallmarks were there; ghosts playing terrible tricks and children that like to scare the shit out of you. These came to a head in a tragic scene of a man being fooled in to killing the love of his life.

I loved the score, it was genuinely haunting music that filled you with dread, often used as cheap scares but fun and most effective nonetheless. KM31 had a minimal story but I must admit, the scares felt a little relentless at times; a scene looks like it's coming to an end and then the TV comes on by itself, you think it's safe to take a breath when you see something lurking over someone's shoulder... To sum up, nowhere near as bad as people make out!

If this film and it's various sub-genre cousins can teach you anything it would probably be to keep your eyes on the road. And if you do hit any dead people, call the effing cops and get the eff outta there.

They're on the hunt for a virgin for reasons I can't quite fathom - Sleepwalkers (1992)

Nobody quite manages to portray incest like Stephen King. Sorry, not incest, I mean normal family life. The colourful American suburbia that could only be the early '90's, we know exactly what we are in for. Or do we...?

A mother and her teenage son move to a new town. But as she packs him off to school she has a few errands for him including finding her a virgin to eat. That's not before they have a bit of a snog of course. These two are shapeshifters and mummy is getting hungry! Young Charles has set his sights on Tanya, a fellow student, to feed her.

Charles gets Tanya alone and begins to suck the life force out of her (or something). She manages to fight him off as his face turns in to a cat face that's more like the furry beast from Beauty and the Beast than a scary feline vampire. Still, a bloodied-cat-faced Charles drags himself home with the police hot on his tail. This leads to the best death by vegetable scene in the history of film. I'd just started to like corn on the cob too! Unfortunately the final girl is so annoying and the evil mother so hot that you want the girl to get eaten, or whatever the hell it is they are going to do with her.

The scenes between Charles and his mother exchange from such sinister demands to steamy encounters, that were they in any other setting but a comedy horror, would've made for a very different, darker kind of movie.

Punchy with attitude. A little bit poor man's Lost Boys, a bit pantomime, but after all that, probably the scariest part of this film is its Enya soundtrack...

Where did everyone go? - The Last Seven (2010)

I always used to think that if I ever woke up one morning and found that everyone had disappeared, I'd eat lots of nice food and stay in a mansion or posh hotel. I'd pick up a big TV, lots of money and have everything I ever wanted. But that wouldn't really be the case. I'd walk for miles, searching for any sign of life. I'd keep going until I got lost and maybe had a bit of a cry. Sniff. Then eventually I'd hide away from anyone living due to the depravities that human beings would sink to in order to survive. In The Last Seven, they do just that, although this time they are forced to face their own sins and demons in the process.

After waking up in the middle of the road, William gets up and straightens his suit, and realising he is completely alone, heads off through the empty streets. Even though I've seen them a million times before in 28 Days Later and the like, I still love scenes of a desolate London. He walks until he finds himself at the top of a building. Seeming to be contemplating what the point is in carrying on he is surprised to find there are survivors. They all seem to be from very different backgrounds but with one thing in common, they don't remember who they are. While they try to figure out what to do they are being stalked by something and gradually the survivors start disappearing.

In flashback, as the characters slowly start to recall piece by piece what happened to them, we see the story unfold. And at last we can hold the individuals accountable for their predicament.

Although some of the acting felt a bit like they were reading the script for the first time and that reading aloud wasn't their best skill, I could be convinced in to quite liking the clunkiness. And all of that was overshadowed anyway by the beautiful imagery, much of it with some dark religious undertones. Despite its modern look and taking in to account its twist, The Last Seven is actually an old fashioned tale of what goes around comes around. Its about having to come to the realisation that what you are running towards may end up being the thing you should be running away from.

Out in the UK on DVD on the 30th August, you can watch the trailer here.

Hello? Hello? Hello? HELLO! HELLO! HELLO! Hello? HELLO!

Horror movie rules state that the telephone can just as easily be your enemy as your friend. Being chased by a knife wielding killer? Then your mobile phone is either out of battery, out of range or you dropped it down the toilet while trying to scramble out the window. Babysitting some kids for a rich couple you've never met before? No sooner have you got the blighters off to bed, raided the fridge, drinks cabinet, any private looking box, drawer or cupboard, when the phone rings. Who is it? Some escaped mental patient who is either standing outside your front door or in a room upstairs, covered in blood, poised to chase you around the house for the next 90 minutes.

The inanimate telephone becomes either a distraction technique or the source of the fear itself. B-Movie Becky from The Horror Effect tagged me in a film meme where you have to put together screenshots following a theme! So, here are a selection of some of my favourite telephone themed horror movie pictures!

And here is a very short film called Bedfellows made by the very talented Drew Daywalt. Don't you hate it when someone calls you in the middle of the night? Gah!

According to the meme I have to tag 5 other blogs to take up the challenge. Let's see what this lot can come up with!

Cyberschizoid
The Spooky Vegan
Jonny's Cult Films
Hayes Hudson's House of Horror
Planet of Terror

There's somebody at the door - The Torment (2010)

AKA The Possession of David O'Reilly (US release)

In the early hours of the morning David turns up at Alex and Kate's house, two of his oldest friends. He has discovered that his girlfriend, Sarah has been having an affair and he is the image of a broken man. But when everyone has gone to bed we see there is more to his tortured expression than was first apparent.

He hears a noise in the back garden, something that does not seem to completely surprise him, but he is terrified nonetheless. Through the back window we see a zombie-like figure, shifting in the darkness and David proceeds to sprinkle salt at the base of the door. He has obviously done this before. Or seen too many episodes of Supernatural, one of the two.

He stays the second night and it is that night that he drags his friends in to his nightmare. David is being haunted, possessed or tormented by something he does not understand. A monster that lurks outside and constantly tries to get in. Alex and Kate are obviously worried about him but because they cannot see what he sees they assume that the stress has had a serious effect on his mental state. But why can't they reach Sarah...?

An unusual story development; we are perhaps offered red herrings in an order I am not familiar with. Alex has set up CCTV in the flat that's triggered by movement. I had high hopes for this idea, being a big fan of Paranormal Activity, but not enough was made of this tool. It seemed like an idea that was forgotten about.

But I did enjoy the idea of the demon using the newspaper and a glass as an impromptu Ouija board. The point of view camera work was used to good effect, making you feel at home in their house without annoying the anti Blair Witch crowd. Essentially this is a story of mental illness verses real demons and that blurred line. In certain altered states who are we to be so confident in saying what is real and what is not?

Release on DVD in the UK today.

Want to join a cult? Then choose The Classic Horror Campaign!

Gone are the days, it seems, that you can turn to the TV on a Saturday night and sit down to watch some good classic horror. Even on Halloween itself you'll be hard pushed to find anything remotely scary on the box. Must we be forced on to the streets to go Trick or Treating and end up getting kidnapped or killed or worse?! I've been watching a lot of the oldies lately. No matter how cheesy they may be they always manage to look good. They are automatically classy because of their age. They manage this with little or without the benefit of our newfangled cinema magic.

Take Nosferatu. Just look at this incarnation of Dracula. If you're of the school of thought that vampires should be pretty then this film could be a real shock to the system. His harsh features, bald head and long pointy fingers. The film itself is surreal. You feel like you're in a dream or have been drugged. Not sure I've seen anything close since.

Night of the Living Dead gave us zombies with social comment. Also, young kids who looked about 30. But young kids having fun they were. Just their voices sound creepy, like they know something is coming around the corner. This low budget film was packed with suspense and inspired many.

Psycho was purposely filmed in B&W because Hitchcock, who knew his stuff, could see that this would give the story more of a scary edge. The scenes, setting and actors where so painstakingly worked out to maximise fear and suspense.

These are just some of the more accessible movies. There is an amazing legacy still to be discovered. The Bide of Frankenstein, The Man with the X-Ray Eyes, pretty much all Hammer!

Check out horror blogger, Cyberschiziod's campaign to bring those horror classics back on to our TV screens in double bill form. Share your ideas, spread the word and sign the petition! And don't forget, something is coming...

Bats! Bats! Get em off me! - Bats (1999)

One thing I hate about summer is things always drop on my head. By things I mean insects. They are just attracted to my head. Maybe it's because I have beautifully smelling hair, I don't know. Countless times I have to remove a bee from my hair with my bare hands! Creepy. I've never had a problem with bats but I am in no doubt that should I be near one, it would fall on my head. Which is why I have sympathy for the poor souls in this film who get killed because I am sure my inconvenience is on a par with theirs.

So, the film version of the above rant begins with a series of traumatic deaths in Texas. In one attack a bat bursts through a car windscreen while the occupants indulge in a little heavy petting. The confined space provides for some quite dramatic and explosive results.

These are not your common garden-variety bats. They have been infected, genetically modified. And now they are on the loose, feeding off the locals. All in the name of science! Lucky Zoologist, Sheila Casper is on hand to track them down before they eat everyone. They capture one and attach a tracking device to its wing, hoping it will lead them to the bat's lair. But in a genuinely creepy twist, the other bats attack it, as if they know it's been sent to rat them out.

People are warned to lock their doors but no one listens and instead chaos reins and the creatures start getting big....real big!

Despite the cheesy nature of this film we are treated to some great Batman-like scenes of hundreds of bats lunging at people, flying past the moon and, erm, munching on someones neck. There is also a scene in a supermarket, complete with country music playing over the loud speaker, where we get to see through the bat's eyes. One of the funniest monster, batty, animals run amok films around. It's making me look at pigeons in a whole new, unpleasant light...